RIM Renamed BlackBerry In Major Branding Change

Research In Motion is now BlackBerry. The tech company behind the BlackBerry smartphone brand announced it would rename itself after its flagship product at the launch of its new BlackBerry 10 platform on Tuesday. (Photo: Screencap)

Research In Motion is now BlackBerry.

The tech company behind the BlackBerry smartphone brand announced it would rename itself after its flagship product at the launch of its new BlackBerry 10 platform on Tuesday.

“It is one brand, it is one promise … From today on, we are BlackBerry everywhere in the world,” CEO Thorsten Heins told a New York audience.

(STORY CONTINUES BELOW SLIDESHOW)

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BlackBerry 10 Launch - Jan. 30, 2013

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RIM CEO Thorsten Heins

RIM Co-founder Mike Lazaridis

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins

Singer Alicia Keys has been appointed BlackBerry's global creative director.

Research In Motion says it's changing its corporate name to BlackBerry, the moniker of its globally recognized smartphones.

The company made the announcement during a splashy event in Manhattan to usher in the new BlackBerry 10 devices, which were originally due for release last year.

The new BlackBerry is widely seen as a make-or-break product for the tech pioneer.

Chief executive Thorsten Heins has taken to the stage at the splashy event to unveil the company's new line of BlackBerry devices.

The BlackBerry Z10 is the touchscreen model, while the BlackBerry Q10 will have a physical keyboard.

Both are powered by the new BB10 operating system.

"We heard you loud and clear,'' Heins told the audience. ``We built this for those people who said they just had to have the physical keyboard typing experience.''

Heins says the past year at the helm of the company has been his most challenging professional experience to date. But he adds it's been exhilarating as well.

Heins calls today's event a ``new day in the history of BlackBerry.''

Thousands have gathered at Pier 36, a massive entertainment venue on the shores of the East River.

The event will also likely include its release date, which is expected in the next four to six weeks, the phone's features and how much it will cost.

The company says the new BlackBerry will be released first in a touchscreen version, while a keypad alternative will follow in the weeks or months afterward.

The new phone launch is BlackBerry's attempt to regain its position in the highly competitive North American and European smartphone markets, which are now dominated by iPhone and Android devices.

While the first hurdles to overcome are the opinions of tech analysts and investor reaction, the true measure of success _ actual sales of the phones _ is still weeks away.

The BlackBerry has dramatically lost marketshare in recent years after a series of blunders.

Several network outages left customers without the use of the smartphones they had come to rely on, while the BlackBerry's hardware hasn't received a significant upgrade in years.

Heins has already offered a glimpse of some features on the new devices. They include BlackBerry Balance technology, which allows one phone to operate as both a business and personal device entirely separate from each other.

The new BlackBerry will also let users seamlessly shift between the phone's applications like they're flipping between pages on a desk.

In the coming weeks, BlackBerry will launch an advertising blitz to promote the phones, including aggressive social media campaigning, which includes plugs from celebrities on their Twitter accounts, and a 30-second advertisement on the Super Bowl, the most watched television program of the year.

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It's hard to know what she'll bring to the boardroom table beyond her own fame — aside from saying sayonara to her slutty iPhone, Keys says she's use the BlackBerry Z10 to shoot music videos during tour stops that "capture sights, sounds, and fans of every city that I visit."

Grammy winner Alicia Keys is not only BlackBerry's new creative director but commercial star, and is launching the "Keep Moving Project" which she'll use to create films using BlackBerry 10 at the Super Bowl and her new world tour. The commercial also features Robert Rodriguez and author Neil Gaiman.

As a replacement for older versions of BlackBerry OS, BB 10 is a huge step out of the dark ages of mobile OS design. It's something that finally feels intended for a modern, full-touch device, yet still offers the core productivity focus we think BBID-holders will like. Does it have mainstream appeal? Yes, it does, but we're not sure a great stock keyboard and some trick gestures are enough to unseat the current kings of mobile devices.

Martyn Mallick, vice-president of global alliances and business development, takes to the stage to introduce some apps. He says the deliberate decision to launch a phone with more apps and social use has already paid off — it already has more than 70,000 applications available.

"With the momentum that we've built we will continue to see thousands of apps added every week," he says.

Key apps include Skype, Kindle, What'sApp, Facebook, AND Angry Birds.

A lack of apps for BlackBerry compared to Android and Apple devices had been a huge setback for the company and a big incentive for users to switch to competitors. (via Sunny Freeman)

New BlackBerry (hard not to call them RIM any more) showcases the Blackberry hub on their new devices. It is pretty innovative, lets you manage all your social profiles on one screen. It also pulls up profiles of your contacts and shows you what they've been saying on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter.

They've moved on to an intuitive keyboard that has words flick up on screen as you type to save time and reduce mistakes. It's supposed to make it easier to delete, add hashtags, numbers, etc. AND recognizes various languages. Thorsten himself looks pretty impressed.